


Trains of Thought

by LilydaleXF



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Babylon, F/M, MSR, The X-Files Revival, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 01:31:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6065659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilydaleXF/pseuds/LilydaleXF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Picking up where the episode "Babylon" ended, Mulder and Scully keep talking outside. Stuff happens. Mulder briefly wears a blanket.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trains of Thought

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Anjou for the read-through and encouragement!

They stand facing each other, clasping hands on the path that leads to the house. Mulder says, "Did you hear that?" Scully answers, "What?"

Mulder quizzically looks at the sky, as he is wont to do, asking if she heard something, but she just laughs and says, "The train?"

"That was no train, Scully."

"Yes it was, Mulder," she says, smiling and swinging their hands back and forth between them. Sometimes she has to literally shake him back to this Earthly plane. "You know that trains go by here."

X X X

Mulder and Scully sit on opposite sides of the living room under dim evening light reading vastly different texts. Hers includes photographs of things he cannot pronounce, and his contains hand-drawn eyewitness renderings of things she doesn't believe exist. They are very good at companionable silence.

Outside a train approaches, rattling some of the house's looser floorboards and prompting Scully to whistle along with the train's faint call. She says it's good for them to have something break the silence every now and then, to remind them that the world outside spins madly on. He says it's good that the world didn't screech to a halt like a scratched record at the sound of that whistling. She picks up and throws some sunflower seeds at him. He leaves bowls of those things all over the house, to her resigned chagrin. None of the seeds get anywhere near him since he's too far away, plus her aim was thrown off by her eyes having narrowed to a faux glare.

Later that night, after the comforter had fallen to the floor and taken the sheet halfway with it, Mulder's head is resting on Scully's bare shoulder. She rubs his head lazily and sing-songs that the earth just moved. He doesn't fall for the belie of seriousness and asks her to whistle, to stop the world at this moment forever.

X X X

"No. It was trumpets, Scully." He tilts his head to the side. "Wasn't it?"

"Power of suggestion, Mulder. You've been thinking about the sound of trumpets coming from seemingly nowhere for days on end. It's no surprise that your unconscious mind made the leap in processing a sound out here where it's fairly isolated and typically quiet."

"But the angels and their trumpets--"

"Or," she interrupts, "it could have been a sort of palinacousis, an auditory preservation. You heard the trumpeting sound now even though you've finally stopped listening to the sound of trumpets on that recording - that is, the alleged sound of trumpets."

He hurrumphs.

"Placebo or not," she continues, "who knows what happened to your brain in Texas after taking those pills. They could be having residual effects on your interpretation of sound."

"Maybe that's what's beyond words, Scully. Sound. It's not opening hearts and listening to them that humanity must do to rediscover its common language. It's the quiet sounds of God that are all around."

"Like trains?"

He smirks. "Listen, Scully. Listen." He turns his glance back up to the sky.

Scully starts to do the same before she shakes her head. God doesn't work that way, whether Mulder believes it or not, believes in God or not.

"Mulder." He shushes her with a wave of his hand.

"Mulder," she says with a little more vigor. He shushes her with both his hands.

Scully makes him pay attention. She pulls his head down one-handed for a very sudden, very emphatic kiss. If Mulder is surprised, he doesn't act like it. His hands thread into her hair, and he leans closer. Her free hand rides down the side of his shirt before sweeping under its hem where her fingers tuck into his waistband. Her other hand somehow followed suit, maybe at the same time, maybe later. She isn't terribly focused on her hands.

After a time, they part. Scully looks up at Mulder, but his eyes are closed.

"Scully, did I hallucinate that?"

"No," she says. His eyes slowly open in reply.

"Folie à deux, a madness shared by two," she thinks.

X X X

They've been trimming hedges together all afternoon. This house has so many hedges and out of control weed patches that one Tuesday off work is not enough for her to help him tame the yard into presentability. She doesn't think she's helping all that well. Mulder has done much more of the work since he doesn't have to keep moving around a little step ladder and climbing up and down like she does to reach most hedge tops. This is not a complaint until she's standing on the ladder one moment and falling off of it the next.

Mulder is responsible for what's more of a forced exit than a fall. He had snuck up, grabbed her from behind, and moved her right off the ladder.

He spins her 180 degrees and holds here there. Her legs hang ineffectually, wiggling quite absurdly in the air. She cries out that she has shears and is not afraid to use them. In reply, he spins her around a bit more.

They're both screeching and chuckling and generally violating the codes of decorum when one of her squirming heels connects with his leg, eliciting a yelp that pleases Scully very much. He deserves it. He's insane.

It's only then he sets her down with a firm hold of her waist. Without saying a word, he gives her hips a quick pat and turns around to resume the untangling of a garden hose. Insane.

X X X

They hold hands again and continue walking away from the house. It's quiet, save the shuffle of their feet, although it's a soft sound since they are walking slowly down the familiar path. There's no talking for a spell as they walk farther.

"Do you think we're going to lose the basement to those agents? Miller and Einstein?"

"I don't know, Mulder."

"Maybe we could booby-trap the office."

"I don't think that's recommended FBI procedure."

"They've kept us on after worse."

"True," admits Scully, as her slickly soled shoe slips on the dirt. She turns to her left, giving Mulder's arm a light tug to follow her onto the grass. He does.

"Do you want to stay on, Scully?"

"Do you, Mulder?"

"It's given me a place to be again. Really BE, Scully. And you're always there, so...."

She squeezes his hand. She feels like they should sit down, be grounded for this, but she's wearing white pants. A gross misjudgement.

X X X

Scully wants them to watch the space station fly overhead and insists that the best view is not through a window and not from the porch but down the drive away from the light of the house. Mulder is still tying his shoes as Scully scuttles out the front door and down the porch stairs. It's not often that Mulder's legs don't outpace hers, but he actually has to jog a bit to catch up with her.

In the rush, Scully forgets to bring the blanket and binoculars she had carefully set out that morning on the table inside the front door. She knew that the binoculars wouldn't make the space station any clearer to see, but the moon would be out, and Mulder likes pretending that he can see little green men in the craters who call them "Miss Scully" and "Mr. Mulder." Being out in the country with him has been an experience.

They sit on the grass, wanting to avoid the dirt of the driveway path. The ground, however, is unexpectedly damp and soaks into their clothes, making a mess. The entire walk back to the house, Mulder circles around and around Scully, pointing and hooting at her disarray. Perhaps she should not have leaned back on her elbows to better see the sky, or leaned over to Mulder to whisper in his ear, although it's his fault that ended in more exaggerated leaning after her whispering turned into kissing.

They are down to their underwear not six feet into the house, their wet clothes spotting the floor. Scully grabs the previously forgotten blanket and wraps it around Mulder, telling him it's a space blanket. He pushes it off, saying he doesn't need it, as his hand that dropped the blanket reaches out to her.

The stains on the pants she had on that night never washed away.

X X X

It's a brilliant sunny day, but there's a brief burst of wind that blows Scully's dark jacket open. She immediately drops Mulder's just-squeezed hand and uses her palms to brace either side of the coat against her body. She keeps walking like that for a few paces, holding the pockets safe, before working her hands into them where her fingers fuss around to the corners before pulling out the necklace that was inside one of the pockets. It's her mother's framed quarter on a chain.

Mulder glances over and asks, "Do you have any new ideas about what it means?"

"I've thought so much about where Mom got this necklace, Mulder, and why she had it with her at the hospital, but I just don't know. I don't think I'll ever know."

"Maybe not," he says, reaching over to hold her hand again, but she's holding the necklace with both hands now and swerves them away from him. His hand falls back, empty, to his side.

"But you know what? I don't think it's about that anymore."

He looks at Scully questioningly as they continue ambling along the grass.

"I think I know why I have it, or why it found me."

"It found you, Scully? Now who's open to extreme possibilities?"

It's Scully's turn to induce silence with a hand wave, which she does with flourish and with a smile. "It's a mystery, this necklace. It has secrets," she says as she holds it out in front of her by its chain. She moves it toward Mulder and stops walking. "Here, take it," she says as he halts too.

"Scully?"

"Yes, take it." He does, but he still looks unsure.

"Nobody will know why you have that necklace, Mulder, or where you got it, but we'll know."

"We'll know," he echoes, and they smile. He flips the coin over and over in his fingers, the movement drawing both their eyes to his hands as he says seriously, "I'm a quarter of the person you are."

She guffaws, right out there in the sunshine. Her outburst at his expense comes even as she knows he's not being entirely facetious, that some part of him actually believes that.

Mulder still hasn't looked up, so it's easier for her to reach him and swipe a kiss across his cheek as she pushes against his elbow, urging them both to turn around and walk. He slips the necklace into one of his pockets with one hand while his other hand finds hers as they start their way back home.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought "Babylon" was a mess, but I liked how Scully had the necklace in her hands before she left for Texas, and I liked the looks on Mulder's and Scully's faces in the episode's last few minutes. When I first watched the episode, I thought it was a train noise at the end, so I ran with Scully hearing it that way too.
> 
> First posted February 19, 2016


End file.
